Opening: 3 October, 5-9pm
 
 
Almanac is thrilled to present Piatti Caldi, the first solo exhibition in the UK by Italian artist Gianluca Concialdi, coinciding with the opening of the new space and studio complex in Brixton.

Rough and minimal, trash and transcendental, Concialdi’s practice mixes popular and high culture with humour, referring to the hybrid, promiscuous diversities and lushness of the Mediterranean sea.

A new body of work explores the schizophrenic and fleeting nature of an image, questioning the possibility of depicting the experience from which is manifested and grasping the essence of its immediacy. Developing his research over the tension between presence and absence, expression and representation, Concialdi’s attempt of joining different temporalities and images in one body reveals the surreal and metaphysical dimension hidden in the everyday experience.
The ambiguous and poetic stance of the works results from a quest for truthfulness that slips into obsessions and contradictions.

A series of pictures, in between still life and abstraction, are carved and then forged into bas-reliefs. Their cast iron surfaces, being at the same time support and image, become pedestals where the images are heated red hot and fade into smoke, in the encounter with some of the objects of their representation. These structures embody, in a tangible form, the transfiguration of an image into another - their coexistence and integration into the present - served on a plate - piatti caldi: hot dishes.

Concialdi extends these ancestral figures, recursive abstract elements recalling body parts, vegetables and surreal presences into color fields and rough paintings on large scale sketching paper, usually used for transferring frescos on walls or in scenography. All the images have a double - as they are painted both sides in different versions - evoking the irrationality of a choice or a renounce that has to be done to move on and to change.

Another ‘usable’ sculpture is part of the exhibition: the re-enactment of a public urban element from a square in Palermo, where Concialdi lives. Chains of various lengths are attached to a metal pole supported by a base in cement. At their extremity, bottle openers engraved with fragments of a dialogue hang for everyone to use. This unusual but practical device acquires the sculptural presence of a public and spontaneous monument, serving urban gatherings with useful tools for having a drink together, cooling down from the heat, having a chat with a neighbour, refreshing bodies and ideas.
 
 
Opening hours during Frieze:
4-5 October, 11am-7pm
 
 
41 Acre Lane
London SW2 5TN